Errrr: Origin’s “Landmark” 9.0 Update

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Let me begin this by noting that, in actuality, EA’s at least been paying solid attention to Origin lately. Lending a helping hand to crowd-funded games taking their wobbly first steps was a smart idea, and putting out a big call for input from users is a much appreciated gesture – assuming, of course, that EA actually takes resulting criticisms to heart. That said, Origin 9.0 – a self-described “landmark update” – isn’t exactly encouraging. Once it rolls out, you’ll gain access to a free-floating friends list, re-sizable game icons, and, er, a clock.

EA gave a very excited blow-by-blow of the less-than-formidable update in a blog post.

“Origin 9.0 is nearly here! In the coming days, we’ll be rolling out a landmark update to millions of Origin users worldwide, beginning with players who have opted in to beta updates and going live for everyone else soon thereafter. Your suggestions and feedback over the past few months have driven many of the changes you’ll see in Origin 9.0. We’ve added a clock to Origin In-Game, increased your control over your My Games library, and made our menus more navigable.”

More navigation! ALL OF THE NAVIGATIONS. And while the pop-out-y bits and malleable menu elements look nicely functional, that’s sort of the issue: Origin’s functional – and that’s it. In the same timespan it’s taken to get Origin 9.0 out the door, Steam’s added Greenlight, Source Filmmaker, a large selection of F2P games, remote installs, and now Linux support is on the way. Sure, EA’s opted to dive out of the line of fire and behind the old “Well, they had a head start” excuse, but if it’s honestly hoping to compete, it can’t stay years behind the curve forever.

What I’m saying is, beyond being a branded storefront, I still don’t understand what larger purpose Origin serves. In truth, I’d actually like to see it, er, pick up some steam, because I don’t think it’s healthy for Valve to not have a viable rival in this space. But this – at least, so far – isn’t the way to do it. Origin’s neither sprinted to the point of being neck-and-neck with Steam nor has it differentiated itself in any meaningful way.

Instead, it’s just puttered along at its own languid pace, harmlessly reminding us of its existence every time we pop open a big-name EA game. Hopefully, though, 9.0 is just the beginning of a much, much larger movement to put some meat on Origin’s emaciated bones. Because right now, I’m Commander Shepard, and this is most certainly not my favorite store on the Citadel.

190 Comments

Not a single online-based system “always works”. There’s bound to be problems and downtime. Also, you very well could play your AssCreed by starting Uplay in offline mode. The game loses some online additions but otherwise is perfectly playable (singleplayer that is) (and assuming you’ve launched it online at least once).

As someone who doesn’t have Origin installed, and is cautiously awaiting a time when it is not consumer unfriendly enough to allow onto my hard drive, I have to ask: What? It can do that? Are you serious?

I am indeed! Highly frustrating. I am not quite sure what the heck has gone on myself. it started when the new ending DLC dropped. I’ve just sort of given up to be honest.

To be clear, I don’t know they specifics of how or why – I just know that after the DLC dropped I logged into origin to download it and it told me the ME3 was uninstalled and low and behold clicking the shortcut to get the game going yielded no result. Everytime I have reinstalled the game it has been magically uninstalled when I restart the service.

Have to say. I add all my games from Origin like ME3 to my Steam Game Grid View (the new customizable images is awesome) so I can launch there, but Origin’s offline play is usually better than Steam’s. My issue is that DLC won’t be playable if you don’t sign in before launching the game though.

I don’t use Origin, but I think it would depend on how the game is built (unless Origin imposes its own rules on it). I’m pretty sure Mass Effect/Dragon Age games won’t let you load up a saved game offline if there’s DLC used in it.

Oblivion did a good job of making the game flexible enough that you can load a save with content that has since been removed, and it’ll continue on without it.

For ME3 it works fine. If you have a savegame with DLC content, it will load everything in offline like it was online (apart from the galaxy of war ofc)
If you start a new game though, you don´t have access to the DLC stuff until you get online at least once, then they will be added to your game and save.

What I’m saying is, beyond being a branded storefront, I still don’t understand what larger purpose Origin serves.

The larger purpose of Origin is to give EA a way to digitally distribute its games without having to pay fees to Valve for patches and DLC. That was the whole reason Origin came into being, and why EA pulled all of its games from Steam.

There’s nothing really wrong with that, and as you say it’s probably unhealthy for Steam not to have any competition.

The business logic is probably that while they didn’t have to pay Valve, other vendors (Microsoft) already make them pay and if Valve suddenly decided to started charging them too they’d have them over a barrel.

Nope. EA want to patch their own games on PS3, have wanted it for years. Let’s them bypass outside business control of Sony going “hang on that’s a patch not a paid for bit of DLC WTF?” it let’s them bypass testing by Sony etc. etc.

Strangely the platform holders operate in the strange position of protecting their customers from publishers sometimes.

I think it’s just the natural control freak in EA that makes them want to control their own patching channel. I can also imagine them making people pay yearly subs to get patches.

Technically there is a charge for testing patches after the second or third one, basically to disinterested people from releasing buggy games. It’s only charged in America though Europe doesn’t charge for patches at all.

I doubt Valve would ever charge for patches. Its a short-sighted policy that makes it worse for both developers and consumers. They’ve had the same issues on consoles, and that was one of their biggest complaints.

I believe EA said they wanted to have everyone running the same patch at the same time, and that wasn’t guaranteed when Steam had say in when a patch would go live on the Steam versions.

As for consoles, Microsoft charges developers/publishers to release patches. Some Live Arcade developers said that they got one free patch, and had to pay beyond that. I don’t know if that is standard policy for all Xbox 360 games, or if different publishers (or even different games) have different deals in their contracts. The excuse I believe is distribution and testing, though there may also be some measure of a “Get it right the first time” incentive. I also don’t know what Sony’s stance is.

Some developers have implemented work-arounds to this policy, as well as the approval delay that comes with it. Basically, they set up their games to dial home and pick up non-patch updates. I believe Mortal Kombat 9 used this to get balance updates out in a timely and affordable manner. Conduit 2 did this on the Wii because the Wii doesn’t even have a “normal” patching infrastructure. Modern Warfare 3 does both regular patches (generally one or two a month) and hotfixes (more common, theoretically these get rolled into a future regular patch once they are proven acceptable) and have apparently now started going to an alternate version of hotfix.

Of course Valve is taking a cut off of DLC. If they wouldn’t, what would hinder sneaky publishers to just release a “starter edition” of a game with all content cut out for 2£ and then selling the entire game content through their own means and circumventing giving Valve anything at all for using Steam.

Obvious.

EA didn’t want to give Valve anything for the huge amounts of payed DLC they are “offering”. So they got kicked out. And rightfully so.

If I wanted to sell games and DLC to a massive group of people I’d be willing to share a little with Valve to accomplish that. Perhaps EA’s stock wouldn’t be having so many problems if their games were available on the biggest content delivery service.

Like the article said, Valve needs some real competition but Origin ain’t it.

EA already distribute their DLC via their game clients though. Also I’d say there’s a bit of limit on what people will pay out with regards DLC in my view (there’s an uppper limit pricepoint), and giving Valve 30% of that action either means effectively losing a 3rd of your profitline, or raising your prices and having the customer foot the extra. Personally I’ve never felt the Bioware pricing for DLC was particularly overpriced. However I’ve often questioned the pricing of DLC I’ve seen on Steam for various titles, and in fact my general policy is to wait until it’s on sale and hoover it up then.

The issue is Valve are enforcing a recent rule that says if you release a new game on Steam then you must also put up any DLC for that game in the Steam store. They are not enforcing exclusivity of store transaction, but it must be an option. This means, if EA want to make 100% of all revenue from the £30 of story DLC for the old Mass Effect 2 (buy it new for £5 in any sale, then think about getting the full story with a small £30 additional payment), they cannot have that DLC also be purchasable in the Steam store (where Valve will take a 30% of cut of all sale value as fee). This is why new EA games with DLC plans cannot be put on Steam without being the ‘GotY’ editions where all DLC is bundled into the boxed price: it violates EA’s plans to maximise their profits through DLC sales.

The rule was not retroactive, which is why older games that violate it were not removed. AFAIK Valve do not charge for patches or free DLC, they do take a cut of all sales (but you can get around this is consumers use your own DLC store rather than Steam to make their purchase – buying DLC in GfWL/in-game in Fable 3 gives 100% of the revenue to MS, buying the same content on Steam gives Valve a cut but leads to the exact same customer experience as you’re buying an unlock code of the DLC that is applied in GfWL).

It has nothing to do with valve charging for patches. They do not, I can promise you.

What the REAL issue was, is games like Dragon Age. EA wants the game itself, while you’re in the middle of playing the game, to say “Hey, do there’s a field of burning orphans, do you want to save them?”

and you go to select “Yes!” but its greyed out, and when you try to press it, it starts to buy some DLC you don’t have. So you buy the DLC, and keep playing.

Steam doesn’t like this. Valve feels it is disingenuous to customers to try to trick them and sell them things while they’re playing. There’s deceptive ways you can hide it, and maybe the player would buy something without even realizing it. Or maybe not.

The fact is, to err on the safe side, Valve has as policy that ALL sales, games, DLC, whatever, ALL sales have to go through the steam program, the steam store. If they want you to buy some extra DLC, they have to pop you back to steam, which you’re familiar with, so you can go through the normal steam process to buy that DLC.

This way, your credit card info and everything is protected, across the line. Any steam game you play can only charge you additional money and sell you more things through steam itself. All of that is contained, and there’s no chance one developer could accidentally share your credit card info or make a bunch of charges you don’t approve of.

So really, Valve is watching out for us. But EA, they’re like “well, screw you, we want this. So we’re gonna make our own service where we’re allowed to charge people however and whenever we want!”

I absolutely agree that Steam could use some competition, but don’t make it out like Origin is the good guys here.

They’re trying to abuse the market, Steam tried to block them, and so they left steam.

Sadly people still refuse to seperate Valve the developer from Valve the distributer. As a developer they’re great as a distributer they have one of the worst track records for DRM. Steam is one of the most bloated and prevalent of the DRM systems out there and you can lay all other DRM schemes right at their feet.

But it’s Valve! They made Half Life! So if you complain its just because you’re a hater.

“Steam is one of the most bloated and prevalent of the DRM systems out there and you can lay all other DRM schemes right at their feet. ”

DRM (and by far worse DRM, things like starforce, initally launched in 2002 if the internet is to be believed compared to steasm 2003 release) was out there before steam was out so not sure how you can blame all DRM on steam. Facts are fun!

Also prevalent DRM yes, and i willa dmit that steam has a basic DRM system, but bloated? Seems ok in terms of mem and CPU usage to me. As one of the few with an offline system (despite the vocal minority saying it doesn’t work, it works fine for everyone i have actually spoken to) shurly it shoudl be an example of DRM done right, gives you everything you need without too much limitiation.

Well on my computer at the moment, Steam is using over double the amount of RAM Origin and Desura are using (this is with all three clients doing their bare minimum). Origin and Desura together use about the same amount of RAM. OK, I do have more than enough RAM to spare, but Steam is still rather bloated.

It also is DRM and offline mode used to be terrible. I haven’t used it in a while, but last time I used, you had to have at least run the game once online in order to play. When you’ve just mass downloaded some games (from a sale) and the go offline, this is a problem. You don’t seriously expect someone to load all the games they just got as they hurry to get out the door?!

Agree that Origin seems to be faster and more streamlined than Steam, but I do believe their offline mode works a tiny bit better than what you’re saying. I recently stayed in a cabin, after purchasing a bundle and downloading all the games into steam. I ran none of them and went to the cabin, all but one were playable in offline mode without having to run them first. The other had a stand alone patcher outside of steam, and so was unplayable offline.

This is a ridiculous exaggeration. EA wants to sell all DLC in-game rather than have two forms of delivery for DLC: in-game and in whatever storefront wants to sell the DLC so they get their cut. There’s no trickery or deception in those DLC sales, it’s an in-game storefront. And yes, I’ve played Dragon Age and know exactly what you’re talking about. Their little Warden’s Keep DLC guy was annoying, but not deceptive or trickery.

Valve doesn’t want to stop EA from doing in-game DLC because they are white knights, they want them to sell DLC in their own platform so they get their cut. That didn’t used to be the their policy, they changed it, and so the EA schism began.

I have to say, every time an EA game (and I do believe it’s only EA games that have done this) tells me right in the middle of my play experience, without my expecting it: “Buy DLC now!” – I throw up in my mouth a little.

Yeah, I believe he’s correct about the intentions of Valve (to have the DLC sales to themselves) but I also agree that in game DLC sales are disgusting and at worst can ruin the experience of the game.

Well its half true, you can also trade with someone for a key, whcih was the second reason they did the system (indirectly paying for hats :P) so its perfectly possible to do it without spending a penny yourself. But hey , facts tend to get in the way of a good bashing :P

Not to be rude here, but how many TF2 players are out there that are actually willing to trade keys (a paid item) for… well…anything? I’ve never met one in all the years I’ve been playing, and the last time I tried to trade various items for a key or two I was literally laughed off the forums.

how many TF2 players are out there that are actually willing to trade keys

Loads if you bother going to the trade sites like tf2outpost instead of hovering around the cesspit of the Steampowered user forum.
I’ve opened dozens of crates & have 20 or so keys currently sitting in my TF2 backpack at present & I’ve never once bought anything from the TF2 store since it’s launch. People will quite happily trade metal, hats & other stuff for keys.

So I need to rely on third-party organizers just to get a few keys? Eh…

I suppose that works for some people, but if I can manage to finally build an entire Croc-o-Style kit purely from trading in-game for scrap parts, why should it be so damned hard just to find someone willing to trade their keys within the confines of the TF2 forums or the game itself?

I just don’t understand why TF2 has to be so rigidly complex when it comes to the social aspects of trading.

So I need to rely on third-party organizers just to get a few keys? Eh…

I suppose that works for some people, but if I can manage to finally build an entire Croc-o-Style kit purely from trading in-game for scrap parts, why should it be so damned hard just to find someone willing to trade their keys within the confines of the TF2 forums or the game itself?

You’re complaining about having to use a 3rd party site dedicated to trading but have no issue with using a 3rd party forum to do the same. Steampowered User Forums aren’t linked in any shape or form to your Steam account & hence neither your TF2 account.
Alternatively you could join trade servers which you find using the server browser within TF2 & chat to people in game to trade stuff but I guess that’s too obvious.

I just don’t understand why TF2 has to be so rigidly complex when it comes to the social aspects of trading.

“You’re complaining about having to use a 3rd party site dedicated to trading but have no issue with using a 3rd party forum to do the same. Steampowered User Forums aren’t linked in any shape or form to your Steam account & hence neither your TF2 account.”

The official Steam Trade forum requires a linked Steam account. The TF2 trade forum does not, but it is actively moderated by Steam employees and volunteers. Calling Steam’s forums “3rd party” is highly inaccurate.

“Alternatively you could join trade servers which you find using the server browser within TF2 & chat to people in game to trade stuff but I guess that’s too obvious.”

I’ve used trade servers in the past — that’s how I’ve completed the majority of my kits. Nice assumption there.

While not 100% agreeing I know this is what Sony have to do with EA on a daily basis. If EA start pissing customers off on Sony’s platform the customers take it out on Sony more than EA, so Sony have to enforce unified stores/wallets etc to maintain the customer experience.

Also because Sony get’s a cut. But there are valid PR reasons why you don’t let publishers have that much control on the consoles.

I understood Nathan’s “what larger purpose it serves” as referring to what purpose it serves for the user.

While you are probably correct about EA’s motivations for Origin, that doesn’t provide any motivation for me as a user beyond not being able to play certain EA games elsewhere (hence “branded storefront”).

Well, unlike Ikea where Ikea branded goods tend to vary really only slightly from other brands (a bed is still a bed) each computer game is unique (well you would hope so anyway) and so being able to get specific games in only one place creates a monopoly so they can (and do) charge very high prices without competition.

Well yes, but as a general consumer, I am quite entitled to not be happy about it and to also voice my concerns.

I can and do vote with my wallet but the sad fact is that when the minority votes with their wallet, it makes bugger all difference. Companies won’t noticed that a (relatively) small amount of money they never had was still not there.

Perhaps if we all bought the game and then got refunds they would take notice, because the reduction would be visible.

The other visible protest is, of course, to complain. Which, as a consumer, is actually our most effective weapon.

Right now, there is a guy from IKEA in my bedroom 24/7. That’s annoying, and I struggled with it quite a bit in the beginning, but now I get along with him just fine. He usually stays in the closet.

What’s happening right now, though, is that more people are trying to get into my bedroom, just because I bought a damn lamp from them, and it wasn’t even that good of a lamp (I already tossed it the fuck out). I really don’t get why those people should be here, I’m still not entirely comfortable with IKEA guy, mind you; so the sheer nerve of those people banging at my door isn’t doing anything other than making me promise to myself that I’ll never give them money ever again.

That’s the real issue here. I’m not letting any more god damn people into my room. IKEA guy is already more than enough. I don’t get why those other guys can’t just accept the fact that IKEA guy was here first, and that I’ve only got the one closet.

To make the analogy complete for the case of PC games, it would be like first having to construct an IKEA in your living room if you want to buy something from IKEA.

Valve got away with it because they were the first, and it’s a good service. I will never run two “always on” game services on my computer, because having just the one IKEA in my living room is enough for me.

Are we really expected to house bloat from every game publisher on our computers? No thanks.

My dodgy internet connection is at least happy that Origin never seems to really care when said dodginess is occurring. Steam, on the other hand, refuses even to load without it, offline mode be damned apparently.

Because reading & clicking are hard for some people apparently.
Hell Steam itself even pops up with a dialog & says “I can’t connect to the internet, do you want to restart in offline mode?” with handy “Yes please let me play my lovely singleplayer games” or “No thanks, try again because I need my Dota 2 fix & I’ve switched my router on now” buttons.

Last time I used Steam’s offline mode, it worked if you clicked ‘go offline’. If you accidentally clicked ‘reconnect’ it would always try to reconnect from then on and not let you go offline. It tried to connect even if you logged off, so I usually ended up clicking the wrong button at some stage and thus could not access my games until I got an internet connection.

It’s not really a problem now though, as I don’t buy games from Steam anymore if I can help it.

The point about Origin failing to differentiate itself from Steam in any meaningful way hits home, especially when you consider that this update seems to serve no purpose other than making the Origin UI more like Steam’s.

Funny thing is Nathan actually pointed out the difference in the article – Origin is just a store front.

I disagree with it lacking appeal though; most of Steam’s features are actually a turn off for people like me who just want to hand over the cash, get the game and play it without any social network nonsense or similar crap getting in the way, and particularly without having to be dependent on a somewhat flaky client running at all times.

The appeal for me is that a chunk of my money doesn’t go to a middle-man who adds zero value as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather buy direct from the dev/pub where possible, as long as they are competitive on price (which is very rarely the case, unfortunately).

I’m A-OK with EA games not being on Steam. Neither side is really ‘in the wrong’ here, they just don’t agree terms and that’s totally fine. If EA doesn’t want to trade by Valve’s rules, that’s their prerogative. If gamers don’t want to buy EA games because they aren’t on Steam, that’s their prerogative. I don’t believe for a second that a significant number of people will actually make good on the latter though, so it’s not really an issue.

Valve can dictate how Steam operates RE: DLC sales, and that’s fair enough, but they shouldn’t be able to dictate how the entire market operates. I’m glad there are still at least a couple of companies operating in PC land who don’t feel like they need to go along with whatever Valve decides.

Agreed. Also I do find the whole ‘No Steam = No sale’ talk fairly amusing. I can’t say I’ve had much problem with Origin, and in fact I’ve run it and ME3 through Stream as third party games and been able to take Screenshots and use Steam chat without any problem. Personally I buy games because I’m interested in playing them. The idea of boycotting a publishers titles because they’re not available on a particular platform seems rather surreal given how easy it is to add 3rd party titles.

Just to remind people, what EA are calling ‘Origin’ is actually EA Downloader rebranded, which is almost as old as Steam. One day, people opening EA Downloader were asked to update it, and the only thing that changed was the logo and name.

The fact that it’s about four years behind Steam in terms of functionality is beyond a joke now.

I love the way that Steam recognizes games that have been manually copied into their folders from a backup and automagically patches the missing content when you launch the game – a real boon for migrating to a new computer from an external backup. Origin needs to download the whole installer and then go through the process of installing which is pretty ridiculous in this day and age.

I have full copies of ME 1&2 and BF3 from my old PC but Origin refuses to let me play them until they have been completely redownloaded and reinstalled. I’m just not going to bother playing them.

I don’t recall EA downloader being a digital storefront within itself, or keeping titles upto date or in fact acting as a launch program tbh. It was more akin to the current GOG downloader, where in it would act as a means to download digital purchases made on the EA website.

The thing is, if you’re not a fanboy or a zealot, if you’re not out to defend one service or bash the other, if you’re simply interested in having good products and services available to you as a gamer, then it doesn’t matter in the least which service got from “launching” to “usable” in the shortest amount of time.

The only thing that matters is “which services have reached a state of being “usable” here and now, in 2012″.

Steam took 6 years to get to the point where it didn’t suck, sure. But in 2012, it generally mostly works. Not counting the offline mode, the sporadic “unable to connect to servers” thing and very variable download speeds. But what’s relevant is Steam’s state here and now, versus Origin’s state here and now.

Steam’s state in 2006 vs Origin’s state in 2015 is only relevant to those looking for ammunition to defend or attack one of the platforms.

For someone who’s not a fanboy or a zealot and who wants a service that’s usable here and now, there’s a fair bit of steam on your spectacles. So, “generally mostly works” (but only if you don’t count its faults) is ok? Surely by those standards, Origin “generally mostly works”?

What’s relevant? What’s relevant is up for the OP to decide. Fortunately, you were so unaware of what it was that you ended up proving his point. Which was, as far as I interpreted it, how the average consumer (if comments like yours are anything to go by) protects Valve and Steam with White Knight-ish dedication vs. the spite those same consumers treat the other gaming majors. Not that those majors don’t deserve it, (because they do) but a company that shoved DRM in online store form on the game everyone wanted to play “because $$$” is deserving of the exact same treatment, no matter how good their PR is or how the DRM “mostly works”.

Yes! Funny thing is that the majority is Flemish! Not to mention that this, and has been a point of contention in Belgium. At least it’s not Ubisoft whom ONLY support Belgian French and Belgian GERMAN! Yes, German, which less than 1 percent of the Belgians speak. As for Dutch, the majority language of Belgium, they tell you (official support!!!) to login as Dutch (Netherlands).

In defense of Origin, it isn’t bad (like others), it’s… marginally functional and serves a purpose, and isn’t a tremendous resource hog that is raped daily by its userbase causing it to slow to a crawl. And, despite stupid lines about IP cheapening, its 50% off at the moment for some big titles.

But EA are out of touch with their audience, and nothing shows that more than how slowly and how little origin has improved. The storefront is still crappy, I can’t stop adverts appearing on startup, and I CANNOT GET IT TO DEFAULT TO MY LIBRARY INSTEAD OF THE STORE ARRRRRRRR.

It’s the denigration of words. Misuse a word too much and it loses meaning. Rape is no longer a vile, reprehensible act that should be punished with the full extent of the law. If you’re a gamer, it means you beat someone. And if you’re a extreme feminist, it apparently means a man looked at you in a way you didn’t like.

Since we’re going to spiral off into the deep end ANYWAYS, as is the wont for these comments now, let’s bring up Tosh and why he’s offensive. Should anyone be surprised his act is crass? No, but you should be surprised at how lazy it is. He goes for shock humor, because he knows saying “rape” at people will get a reaction. So when that lady who did not know who he was, he dealt with it in the most unprofessional manner possible. Sure, hecklers are always a problem for comedians, but that was incredibly poor form, especially when she said one thing and began to leave. Rather than coming up with anything (because Tosh has zero ability to improv), he just said “derp lol rape” at her. And that’s his audience. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with being a lazy, talentless hack. Sure worked for Mencia, who just steals all his jokes.

But anyways. It’s a complex issue. In closing, I hope Tosh is raped by alligators wearing clown makeup.

The point, actually, is context. Words are allowed multiple meanings because as human beings we have this great ability to contextualise. It’s how language grows. Using ‘rape’ in a context outside of the physical act does not diminish its meaning in that context in any way whatsoever. People who claim otherwise are simply wrong.

Does using ‘Jesus’ as an expletive or expression of surprise diminish people’s beliefs in Christianity? Or, reversely, If I called a man committing a homosexual act a ‘faggot’ would you think it was just odd rather than offensive because I must mean the food or a bunch of sticks tied together with string?

Context is everything, and getting offended because someone uses a word in a different way to you is not going to stop language pushing forward, and it doesn’t give you some imagined moral high ground. The word ‘Rape’ is no exception to that.

I will not install Origin until it let’s my choose the display language. Right now you can only change the language of some of the menus and the whole store’s language is automatically set to the one used in the country you’re in. Useless.

Many people complained about it, EA is aware of the problem but they don’t seem to want to fix it.

I don’t mind Origin so much, but golly gosh to goodness is it hard to just browse the store. I’ve lost count of the number of times someone’s told me there was a sale on at Origin and I’ve been unable to find the game. Sure it’s got a search function but if you just want to browse the collection there’s nothing.

I don’t give a flying fuck about EA hostility ( although it’s well deserved if a bit naive ) but I’m not going to install yet another “you have to run this to play games” software. I didn’t do it for Ubi and I’m not going to do it for EA.

Steam is more than enough for the convenience factor for me ( and I can run Sots II and Blacklight:Retribution and Tribes without Steam anyway, and I only play Crawl:Stone Soup and Dwarf Fortress other than that anyway, so nanana ).

I feel like the other guys are just late to the party. Everyone’s got Steam because Steam was here first and it’s some sort of a necessary evil. I wonder if I bought more games on gog.com and gamersgate than Steam, but I don’t know.

I’m starting my own car company, and I want you in on the ground floor, friend!

It’s £10,000 for my first model and yes it’s just a board on some wheels but it’s unfair to compare us to Mazda or Ford – they had a head start on us after all. Apples and Oranges, mate – you understand, don’t you?

Its the same with MMOs that are released, people say “its better than wow at release” but you are not comparing the two at release, you are comparing the one released now with the other product as it is now.

Yes it takes a while to develop but you ahve to compete at the level things are now.

It would be like me releasing a computer with 1 MB of ram and a 23 mhz processor saying “well i have just started, but i am better than dell are when they started so its all fine”

Actually that probably would be better than dell now so it may be a bad example :P

I’m pretty sure EA offering their DLC separately to Steam’s store is what ended certain games chances of being on Steam. I’m sure people noticed once Crysis 2 wasn’t offering DLC from an in-game service it was allowed back on.

Dragon Age 2 still offers that service and uses BioWare’s social page for DLC too, that’s the ultimate problem. EA want all the DLC profit and to control community interaction.

I didn’t express myself clearly. I’m in favor of them adding the clock. Really, I think it’s a neat feature even if it is boilerplate. What I meant to say is that EA should continue what they’re doing rather than inject Origin with a bunch of unnecessary features just to compete with Steam. Working on the basics first (inventory and menu upgrades mostly) is absolutely what they should be doing.

Although I agree with others in that it wouldn’t hurt them to try and differentiate themselves a bit more rather than just play catch up.

Well that sounds more reasonable. I’d object to anyone complaining about the ”bloat” of features on Steam simply because they are good for the people who use them, and as far as I can tell have no negative impact on the main service.

All Origin needs to do is have a working ‘offline mode’ (a term that still hasn’t stopped sounding any less silly) that cements a purchased/downloaded game to a user’s PC, lets the user make backup copies of games, lets the user restore backups even while offline and I ‘might’ try it out…unless that gets Valve to overhaul their ‘offline mode’ in response, in which case screw Origin.

If Steam detects your router, it thinks there is a way to get online whether the phone line is active or not – yes it’s a design flaw but it’s easily solved by turning the router off/taking your network cable out/turning your wireless connection off.

The “go offline” menu selection has a significant number of failure points that unplugging your network cable does not.

For example, if steam isn’t running and the network is “available” but doesn’t actually work while steam is starting up, it will sometimes refuse to let the offline mode work.

Yeah, it smells like a bug, but it definitely has some intention to not just allow offline mode to always and instantly work in all scenarios without trying to phone home (slowly). That it completely fails sometimes is just additional trouble.

That said, this is not *usually* a big problem, though it does bite me when trying to play games on the laptop in transit.

Origin just now looks flat. It seems the client renders something like a webpage, and this webpage is optimized for 1024×769 and to complete the resolution people use now, theres some huge empty columns. Plus what is on the center don’t really show what games theres on the shop. Its more a interface designed to obscure the fact theres not much games. I can understand that, but is not something that help “browsing”.

Anyway Origin exist to convince everyone to pay 60$ or 70$ for videogames that normally cost 50$. So in more than one sense is a shop designed to scare away customers.

Origin is all “He, buy MH4 for 70$!… ” and Steam is “He, ..buy this 5 games for 12$, and get a hat free”.

Competition is good and I am glad there are things like GoG, Impulse, and Amazon games. The #1 problem with Origin is its association with EA. EA has shown over and over that they are not interested in long term support of their products. They release games in pretty good shape and will patch any early game breaking bugs, but that is it. Documented, reproducible bugs are left unpatched and the dev team is moved to a new project. After a few years servers are turned off and multiplayer is disabled. This isn’t a company I want to have controlling my games account.

Since ME3 was the only reason I had to install Origin, I’ve just been thinking of it as a launcher for Mass Effect. Now that I’m through with that game, I don’t have any reason to load it again unless something awfully attractive is released that I can’t get on Steam, or directly through a developer storefront.

Given the klutzy interface and poor integration with Windows (like dumping to the Windows uninstaller to remove a game), I think EA isn’t really aiming to be a Steam alternative. They seem content to make it just a basic storefront for purchase and launching of EA games.

I’m all for competition and I would love for someone to challenge Steam’s level of service. GOG is doing a wonderful job but it’s not going to make it without mainstream games. However, I don’t want competition if it’s from companies with the mindset of EA. I would much rather have a Valve “dictatorship” than take the chance of EA winning and then showing its true face. Same for Activision and every other huge publisher.

If other companies with a proven track record of respecting their customers can mount a serious challenge against Steam, then great! If not, I for one welcome our new Valve Overlords.

It’s just so that if there are problems with it they always have “it’s a beta” as an excuse of last resort. Nor is such an approach terribly uncommon for software companies – remember how many years Gmail wore the “beta” tag?

I REALLLY hate companies who do this, if its beta it should not be used to launch your major tripple A games. Whiel betas are given to clients they are still testing not production level. If its being used for that , its not beta.

I hate that google and activision have destroyed the idea of a beta, used now for marketing purposes because as a software developer it ruins actualy proper betas. Things in beta should be feature complete but you test each bit of it not all at once, but peopel complain that its not all there and say “its crap not buying” cause beta means “extended demo” or “its out but has bugs”.

This beta crap should be actionable, in the UK in theory it is, if its released as a beta its NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE, sales of goods act , it should be a full product.

I don’t understand “I don’t think it’s healthy for Valve to not have a viable rival in this space”. I spend 99% of my games money in GOG, GamersGate, and various Indie Bundles. I only use Steam under duress.

I like Origin because it does what it’s meant to do, and that’s it.
And that’s fine with me, when we’re talking DRM – it doesn’t need a dozen inferior functionalities/features to somehow “glorify” itself.

“I’d actually like to see it, er, pick up some steam, because I don’t think it’s healthy for Valve to not have a viable rival in this space.”

I wouldn’t, I would like GoG or Gamers Gate to “pick up some steam” so there’s some competition.

If it has to be a big company I’d prefer Amazon considerably, because they seem to genuinely care and know of something called customer service/satisfaction: link to cheapassgamer.com

But certainly not EA, Activision or Microsoft, because I can already tell you that they’d only be out to screw consumers even more than they already do and “trap them” into their service so they can “microtransact” them to death and do other horrible things to them as long as they think there’s a quick buck to make.

Source Filmmaker is an add on to the Source engine …it’s not a Steam feature. It’s not going to allow people to make movies in non Source engine games. If you want to hoist the flag about about fucking amazing Steam is and Boo hiss on Origin (because we all want a Steam monopoly in the long run don’t we) at least gets your facts straight man.

“Steam’s added Greenlight, Source Filmmaker, a large selection of F2P games, remote installs, and now Linux support is on the way. ”

Another bit of what he wrote, To me it implys things that steam is offering, it has been added to steam because you can download it from steam, and is exclusive to steam.

Its not a steam feature, its not said that its a steam feature, but its something that steam has offered.

He also says they have added a large selection of F2P games, go on hit on him for saying that!

“If you want to hoist the flag about about fucking amazing Steam is and Boo hiss on Origin (because we all want a Steam monopoly in the long run don’t we) at least gets your facts straight man.”

It seems he doesn’t want a steam monopoly cause he says at the end “Hopefully, though, 9.0 is just the beginning of a much, much larger movement to put some meat on Origin’s emaciated bones.”, which kinda says he hopes it gets better.

Might wanna check your own facts!

[EDIT] He also says “because I don’t think it’s healthy for Valve to not have a viable rival in this space” so another bit to the not wanting a monopoly.

Please, recognize a shill when you see one. Grayson is about as straight a games ‘journalist’ when it comes to Steam and Origin, as Brian X. Chen is about Apple products. Next time there’s an article on GOG I wonder if he’ll berate them for not having X, Y & Z features Steam has…somehow I doubt it.

That pretty much sums up my opinion. I hope origin fails, it wont, but I hope. Competition for steam is a good thing in theory… but seriously, what do we want from valve that they are not already giving us by the bucket load? Origin is pointless and only serves one function: more profit for EA. thats it. Anything else if bullshit.

Origin won’t allow me to play my pre-Origin previously-working digital copy of MoH: Airborne, and I’ve been fighting with EA’s support crew for six fucking months about finally closing the support ticket and refunding me my money. They insist they can fix it despite substantial evidence to the contrary.

You know what’s really screwed about my situation? EA support and Origin support (they are two separate entities, seriously) are blaming each other for the lack of a resolution on my ticket.

I like how this was supposed to be about Origin, but everyone keeps going on about Steam. I guess that despite the landmark update (and the clock, don’t forget about the clock), there still isn’t anything substantial to talk about. :D

“I don’t think it’s healthy for Valve to not have a viable rival in this space.”

I would like that viable rival to be GOG.com, the pro-consumer (DRM free, single global price, value add as free extras included in every sale – except in the case of EA, I see all their old game releases on GOG.com don’t even include a rip of the audio files to mp3s) policies make them an ideal alternative to Steam and Valve’s more ‘let the publisher create a contract with the consumer however they see fit’ policy.

The only reason GOG we’re able to promote DRM free is because very few peoples livelihoods were reliant on making the income from the product. None of the original developers who made those old games get royalty cheques from the sales. Despite all the goodness CDProjekt put into The Witcher 2 it was still pirated 4:1 vs sales. If you put DRM in you get bitched out for being war criminals and if you don’t put it in you get pirated to hell.

Are you saying that 4:1 figure is significantly higher than industry standard for games with DRM? Are you even saying that we have accurate piracy figures? Do we have data on piracy conversion to paid (piracy as a demo) or financial ability/inclination of pirates (that 12 year old kid doesn’t have money for a $60 game their parents don’t approve of, no one could sanely call it a lost sale).

DRM only exists in the non-pirated version. You buy a week? before the game is pirated by adding large chunks of DRM. Check out some of the RPS content about DRM for why it’s a good thing to call for an end to DRM and if GOG.com expand to even more newer titles then they might be able to get more movement in that direction.

Most of those Steam improvements have probably been in development for years. If I remember correctly, Source Filmmaker has been in development far longer than Origin has existed.

I don’t understand this “Steam is so good. It’s all we need. There should be nothing else.” kind of attitude. If Origin was not being improved, then I could see reasons to complain, but it is being improved. Now you could say EA have the resources to make big updates to match the development Valve have achieved over many years, but that would be a huge financial undertaking. Programmers can only code so much a day and don’t come cheap; even the code monkeys.